A Perfect Birthday
by macyluvsu
Summary: Continuation of the ending of the season 6 episode Contagious. EOness can either be friendship or more, whichever you choose to make of it.


This is a continuation of the ending of the season 6 episode, Contagious. I kinda suck at writing stories in first-person, so bare with me.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Law & Order: SVU

A Perfect Birthday – Elliot's POV

God, I can't believe that kid! So sick! How does a kid that age get excited with 12 year-olds! I barely heard Fin talking to Olivia, I was so lost in thought. It was only when I noticed her standing there staring at me that I stopped and looked up at her, noticing concern in her eyes.

"I'm going home," I said simply.

She paused, still staring, but there was something else in her eyes, something I wasn't sure I could quite put into words.

"Why don't you stop at your desk first."

It wasn't a question or a suggestion by the tone of her voice. She turned and walked slowly back into the bullpen, every-so-often turning her head over her shoulder to make sure I was still there. Olivia stopped before going all the way in, and waited for me to catch up.

I noticed a bright light out of the corner of my eye, and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight that lay before my eyes.

There standing behind my desk were my four beautiful children, Maureen and Kathleen with Elizabeth and Dickie standing in between them, with a brightly lit cake sitting on my desk.

"Happy Birthday, Dad," Maureen said, smiling.

I turned and glanced at Olivia, about to ask a million questions that swarmed my mind, but she smiled lightly and nodded her head in their direction, prompting me to go to them.

Regaining control of myself from shock, I strode over to my kids, watching their smiles increase.

"Think you got enough candles on that cake?" I asked jokingly.

"We always have a cake," Lizzie says.

"Olivia called and said you'd be here," Maureen said as I gave her a hug, "and Mom lent me the car," she finished as I moved to hug Lizzie and Dickie.

"How's she doing?" I asked.

"Okay, how about you?" Kathleen answered, giving me a kiss on the cheek as I hugged her also.

"Great." I replied.

"You have to make a wish," Dickie said, looking up at me with expectant blue eyes.

"Course I do," I said, smirking. But that smirk immediately left as I notice two certain people solemnly leave Cragen's office.

"I'll be right back," I said, walking over to Marc and Julie Dawbins.

"Mr. and Mrs. Dawbins," I started to say, but Mrs. Dawbins cut me off immediately.

"Please, don't," she said coldly.

"The high school fired me," Mr. Dawbins said, giving me a cold glare. "They said forging that letter damaged my integrity. It set a bad example for the students. I'll never get another teaching job."

"We're selling the house, moving in with my parents upstate," Mrs. Dawbins added.

I honestly felt like shit for what the squad and I put this family through. "I'm sorry," I said meekly. "I wish any of this had never happened."

"Me too," Mr. Dawbins said, then briskly walked past me, with his wife in tow. I stared after them, wanting to kick myself for what happened.

I sighed, an almost perfect evening started to look grim. But then I heard Olivia next to me.

"Elliot, you're kids are waiting," she softly whispered.

I turned around and look at my kids and slowly I smiled and walked back towards them, in which they embraced me in a group hug. I noticed a small flash, but was too happy hugging my children to care what it was.

After our hug, we made our way back to my desk for the cake. As I was about to blow out the candles, Lizzie and Dickie pushed me away playfully and began singing Happy Birthday to me, in which Kathleen and Maureen joined in. And just ever so lightly, I could have sworn that I heard Olivia humming along.

"And many more, on channel 4!" Lizzie and Dickie added, still singing, with one arm around each other. Another flash went off.

"Yeah, yeah, just because I'm getting old doesn't mean you have to rub it in," I laughed, tickling the twins to move so I could blow out the candles. Another flash lit the room.

Five sets of hands clapped as I blew out the candles, and two more flashes lit the room.

Maureen picked up the knife and fork, and began cutting the cake into slices for the six of us, including Olivia.

"Honey, I can get that," I protested.

"No, Dad, it's your birthday, you sit and relax," she said, smiling, knowing that cutting cake isn't exactly exhausting. Another flash illuminated the moment.

Maureen finished dividing up the cake and handed out everyone's piece, in which I noticed Olivia retreat a little further back than what I thought necessary.

"This is good cake!" I commented, after taking my first bite. "Did all of you make it?"

Four heads nodded and smiled at me while eating their pieces of cake. I continued eating as Kathleen explained how each one of them helped.

"Maureen paid for all of the ingredients, since Mom was conveniently out of them," she said grinning as she stated exactly how Maureen had contributed, "I made the batter and baked it, Lizzie made the icing, and Dickie 'willingly' put the icing on the cake."

"And when you say 'willingly', exactly what do you mean by that?" I asked, grinning, noting the way Kathleen had mentioned Dickie's cake services.

"I promised him I'd put in a good word for him in a conversation with a certain girl in our class," Lizzie teased.

"Shut up!" Dickie yelled.

Lizzie merely stuck her tongue out at him and started saying in a sing-song voice, "Dickie's got a crush on Holly! Dickie's got a crush on Holly!"

At this, Dickie grinned and flung the bite of cake on his fork at Lizzie, hitting her square in the forehead. Lizzie abruptly stopped singing, her mouth dropped to the floor, eyes full of surprise and shock. Another flash went off.

"DICKIE!" She screamed, "You'll pay for that!"

And Lizzie got her revenge, maybe a little too much of it. Before I could get in there and break up their little rivalry, Lizzie had taken the rest of her piece of cake and broke it in half, attempting to hit Dickie with both pieces. One piece made target on Dickie's chin, and then fell to his shirt. Another flash of light went off. The other piece, completely missed Dickie, and smacked Kathleen in the face, causing her to make quite the same facial expression that Lizzie had on her face only moments earlier. Another flash.

"No you did NOT," Kathleen said, mock threateningly. She picked up her unfinished piece of cake and acted as though she was going to throw it at Lizzie, but Lizzie got up from her seat and ran behind Maureen, as Kathleen got up and chased after her.

"Lizzie, no! Don't you dare use me as a body guard!" Maureen protested. I watched Kathleen to see what her next move would be and noticed Dickie get up and walk over behind Maureen and stand next to Lizzie. Kathleen eyed the twins, and that's when I realized that Maureen was not intended to be a shield. Maureen caught on quickly too, and tried to get up from her seat, but Lizzie and Dickie grabbed her arms and held her back, as Kathleen smeared cake and icing on Maureen's face, all the while, my four kids were not at all angry, in fact, they couldn't stop laughing. Two more flashes of light came and went.

And then all four faces turned to me with sly grins. I was next.

"Oh no! No. We are not attacking me with cake," I protested.

"Oh yes we are, Birthday Boy!" Olivia laughed, pushing down on my shoulders from behind. "You're the only Stabler without cake on their face. That has to change."

"Well then you're suffering along with me," I said, and that's when I heard a familiar clicking noise. I look down and notice that Olivia had cuffed my hand to my desk drawer.

"Okay, kids, let him have it," Olivia laughed.

And with that, all four of my kids ran at me, each with a handful of cake and began smearing it on my face. I attempted to thwart them off with my free hand by tickling which ever one of them got in range of me, but it was to no avail. More flashes of light illuminated the room. By this time, I gave up trying to get them off, and instead took some of my own piece of cake and got more cake on Maureen and Lizzie. Kathleen and Dickie had managed to avoid my handful of cake. A couple more flashes of light appeared.

Once we had no more cake to use in our little food fight, Olivia came over and uncuffed me. Dickie grabbed something off of my desk, which Olivia had set down, but I was too busy acting out my revenge on Olivia to realize what it was. I smeared some left-over icing on her cheek and forehead. And then another flash of light went off.

"That's for cuffing me to the desk," I said, smirking at her.

"Ha ha, you got your revenge," Olivia smiled, "I'm going to get us some towels, I don't think napkins will help in this case," and with that she retreated to the locker room, taking some dark object with her.

"Sorry that we didn't get you anything, Dad," Maureen said, as we all were cleaning up the mess of cake that hadn't stayed on our faces during the food fight.

"Kids, just being here with me tonight is the only present I need from you," I told them, and hugged and kissed each one of them again.

Olivia came back with fresh towels for us, and I noticed she had already washed the cake remnants off of her face.

"Actually Elliot, you do get a gift, or gifts, rather," she said, handing each of us a towel. "It'll just take a couple of more minutes to put the finishing touches on it, so I will be back in a minute."

Olivia was gone for about five minutes, and came back with one large box, a smaller box, and 2 medium-sized bags.

"You can say these are from all of us," Olivia said, gesturing to my kids and herself.

The first bag had two silver four by six frames, one picture of Lizzie and Dickie, one arm linked around each other, singing the extended version of the birthday song. The second picture was of Maureen and Kathleen standing next to each other, clapping and smiling as I blew out my candles.

The second bag had a silver rectangular frame, which folded making five separate parts, four of the parts held a separate picture of my kids' reaction to getting cake on their face. Lizzie and Kathleen both looked shocked, and Dickie and Maureen are laughing. There was room for one more picture on the end, which contained the picture of me smearing cake on Olivia's face. The bag also held a silver four by six frame of all four of them smearing cake on each other, Lizzie and Dickie attempting to hold down Maureen in her chair while getting each other, while Kathleen and Maureen were engaged in their own cake war.

The small box revealed a five by seven picture of when I had hugged all four of my kids at once the first time this evening. In the picture, my head is bent down, my arms stretched out, and from left to right, is Maureen, Lizzie, Dickie, and Kathleen hugging me back. That's when I felt the tears brimming.

The large box I unwrapped contained a large black frame, with a white background. Inside the frame, were many different slots for random pictures to be placed, which had already been filled with black and white photos of tonight's party. The pictures I had unwrapped earlier were in this frame as well, along with a shot of me blowing out the candles and Maureen cutting the cake. There were extra cake fight pictures, one of me being attacked by my kids, one of me trying to fend them off, and one of me smearing cake on Olivia's face. But there's one single empty spot left. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, down in the bottom right corner, handwritten by Olivia from what I could tell, were the words, "Elliot Stabler's Birthday, October 19, 2004." Underneath that were more signatures that I know like the back of my hand. "In Attendance: Maureen Stabler, Kathleen Stabler, Elizabeth Stabler, Richard Stabler, and Olivia Benson."

At that point, I could contain the tears of happiness and appreciation no longer. I let them fall.

"Wow," I said, nearly speechless, "this is incredible. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much."

And again, I found myself hugging and kissing all four of my kids, but this time, I hugged and kissed one more person. I walked over to Olivia, and we embraced, and then I kissed the top of her head, her eyes fluttering closed, and tears still streaming down my face. And then I felt that flash again, and knew that someone had taken a picture. Olivia and I looked over to see all of them grinning, with Maureen holding the camera.

"Now you'll be able to fill that empty spot, but you'll definitely have to frame this one on its own though, it's too adorable not too," she said smiling.

I grin and look back down at Olivia.

"Happy Birthday Elliot," she said, kissing me on the cheek, "You deserved it."

This truly was the perfect birthday.

Fin.

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